On Monday, Supreme Court's E-Committee Chairman, Justice DY Chandrachud observed in a Virtual Ceremony that Virtual Court system is significant in the fact that it is aimed to be Citizen-Centric.
Justice Chandrachud was the keynote speaker of the e-inaugurate of e-projects by the Kerala High Court for E-Modules pertaining to bail applications, land acquisition appeals, motor accident appeal cases and obtaining certified copies electronically.
Justice Chandrachud in his address said initially:
"What is the importance of the virtual court? It is citizen-centric. It is an effort of the Indian judiciary to tell our citizens that we realise that time has value, that courts are not just places where citizens come just to be granted an adjournment. With such initiatives, the Court is assuring the citizens that we value your time, we value your productivity. And therefore, when you plead guilty if you want to, to a petty offence, you can pay your fine online, you are saved of the botheration of coming to the Courts."
He added that Virtual Court system leads to judicial productivity as with such a system in place, the work of 20 Judges in Delhi is now being handled by one Judge.
Continuing his address he went onto say that it also promotes compliance of the rule of law. It ensures that metro cities don't become accident capitals of the world.
The judge hailed the Kerala High for the initiatives launched noting that it would ensure the real-time scrutiny of bail applications, which have an intrinsic connection with human liberty.
"This was an important first step to be open, transparent and efficient", he added.
He appreciated that by these initiatives, linkages are fostered with all the stakeholders concerned, which would also ensure greater accountability when it comes to the functioning of the prosecuting arm of the State Government.
He said:
"As information is made available to the judges on their dashboard in real time, the judge assumes command and responsibility for the fairness of the criminal justice administration. Further, the digital signing of orders would ensure seamless, instantaneous communication of bail orders."
He did add a few suggestions of his own on how to use technology further for the benefit of lawyers and litigants such as the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to translate contents of FIRs where it is in another language, to translate all judgements of High Courts into regional languages.
Few other suggestions were:
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Use of online mediation and negotiation services to help bring peace between warring parties across state and country lines.
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Training of Lawyers and Judges.
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The need to spread the footprint of the virtual courts.
Concluding his address, Justice Chandrachud also urged the Kerala High Court to thing beyond E-filing and look into digitising cases, including pending cases.
"From digitisation, we propose to move towards a natural repository of judicial data and the interoperability of data at all levels across the nation. We must digits with very grave care. In the process of digitisation, we must maintain a basic machine learning equipment so that in the future, our data, which is digitised, becomes inter-operable"
While closing his address he stated:
"My thought is that Kerala should become the first State to eradicate information and communications technology illiteracy amongst the Bench and the Bar...If we do that, we will foster the most important thing, which is a change in mindset. It is only when we change mindset we will be able to tap the full potential of the technology that we are deploying as part of all these projects today."
Apart from it, there was launch of an e-filing system for Subordinate cCourts with the Munsiff Magistrate Court at Kolenchery and the Munisff's court at Ernakulam as pilot locations.
